


Brave Little Soldiers

by WallFlowerWriter



Series: A Robin Rebuilds His Nest [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman: The Killing Joke (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Post-Killing Joke, Pre-Under the Red Hood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 06:23:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallFlowerWriter/pseuds/WallFlowerWriter
Summary: Out of everyone, he's the one that understands her pain.And that is why Jason Todd crawls through Barbara Gordon's hospital window, the night after it happens.





	Brave Little Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

> This is set pre-Under the Red Hood, so the Batfam has no idea Jason is back yet. As per usual, it is my own special blend of continuities and characterisations.

He jimmies open the window and climbs in the room without making a sound. The room is silent except for the steady beeping of the machines that are monitoring Barbara's vital signs. He glances around the room quickly, taking in the bouquet of sunflowers on the bedside table and the multitudes of cards surrounding them. All of them are bright and cheerful, with 'Get Well Soon' printed across their fronts in reds and blues and yellows. It makes Jason sick to his stomach. Like Barbara will ever get better, like she'll magically regain the use of her legs. Like she won't wake up screaming, shaking and sweating with thoughts of too-white skin and blood-red grins dancing around that big brain of hers. He shuts the window, wincing only slightly at the 'thunk' that it makes. Better than her getting cold though. Then, he looks at her.

  
He hasn't seen Barbara in person since before it happened. Her thing and his. He came back to Gotham not too long ago, only a few months, and no one knows he's back. Not Bruce, not Dick, not Alfred and not Babs. He's followed her a few times while she's been out on patrol, followed Bruce and the replacement too (Dick's still flitting between his team and Gotham and Jason's only seen him twice since he arrived). She's still amazing. Meant for the cowl. Or...she was at least.

  
Now, lying there in the hospital bed, Barbara Gordon looks every bit like the helpless librarian that she purports to be in her civilian life. Jason has to bite his lip to stop from gasping. She doesn't look like Babs. She looks...she looks dead, he thinks, the heaviness that's settled in his chest since he heard rising up his throat like bile. Her skin is too pale, almost bloodless, and wax-like. If it weren't for the gentle rise and fall of her chest, Jason might think she was gone.

  
When he first took up the mantle of Robin, Jason had been wary of Babs. She had been cold towards him, constantly criticising his technique, refusing to take him on patrol with her, that sort of thing. Jason had been young, he hadn't understood that she was trying to deal with her resentment at Dick and Bruce by treating him that way.

  
Until Dick came back, of course. And then Jason had not been too concerned with how Barbara seemed to hate him because he was more upset that Dick seemed to hate him too.  
It had been too much. Being treated like he was some kind of cheap replacement, like he was an annoyance who wasn't worth the time, by the original Robin, by his hero...it had broken Jason's little 10 year old heart. And when he overheard Dick saying that word for word to Bruce, it was too much. He ran upstairs to his room and slammed the door, grabbing the nearest backpack and throwing things into it as quickly as he could.

  
"They don't want me here, that's fine, I don't need 'em either, I'll go, just go back to my friends and the Narrows, it'll be like I never left." He had muttered frantically to himself, ignoring the stinging in his eyes. Then, as he was toeing on his good sneakers, there had been a tentative knock on his door. "Go 'way!" He yelled, but whoever it was didn't go, they just knocked again, a little more confident this time. "I said go away!" This time the yell was accompanied by a thump as he threw a slipper at the door.

  
"Jason, I wanna talk to you." Barbara's was the last voice he had expected to hear. He hadn't even known she was in the cave, but she must have been stood just out of his line of sight. He didn't respond, just carried on breathing heavily in an attempt to will the tears in the corners of his eyes away. "Please can I come in?" 

"No! I don't wanna talk to you!" He heard Barbara sigh through the door, and he thought he had won, until Barbara spoke again. 

"I just want to apologise." Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Jason took a step closer to the door. "Please Jason, I'm so sorry." She sounded...not like Jason had ever heard her. She sounded like she might be about to cry. 

"Why?" 

"Jason, please open the door, I wanna look you in the eye while I say this." He hesitated for a moment before he took two more steps across the room and opened the door. Barbara was stood there, her face bright red and her eyes wet. When she saw him, stood there with his half-full backpack in one hand and tear tracks on his face, she swallowed audibly. "Oh, Jason." 

She reached out with both hands, and for a second Jason had thought she was going to hug him and had bristled at the thought, but instead she just took the rucksack gently from his fingers and put it on the floor. Then she sighed again and gestured to the inside of his room. 

"Can I come in?" After considering her very carefully for a minute, Jason nodded and stepped out of the doorway. Gingerly, Barbara had stepped in, then nodded towards the bed. "Can we sit?" He nodded again and Barbara followed him to his bed and sat beside him. "Your room is nice. I like the models." She offered after a brief silence, nodding at the model airplanes that were hanging from the ceiling. There were three of them, a P-38 Lightening, a Hawker Sea Hurricane and a Supermarine Spitfire XVI, but Jason wanted to build some more. 

"Thanks." He said quietly. "Alfred helped me make the Spitfire. Bruce helped me with the Hurricane. I did the Lightening by myself." 

"Wow, that's really cool." She hadn't sounded sarcastic, but Jason had spared her a quick glance, just to check. He found her already looking at him, a small smile on her lips. When he didn't smile back, Barbara had sighed and folded her hands across her lap neatly. "OK, me and you, we need to talk." Jason said nothing, just watched her carefully. "Because I think I may have been taking some of my problems with Dick and Bruce out on you and that's not...that's not OK.

"I know it doesn't excuse it, but I didn't really realise I was doing it, and I'm sorry. I mean, you're...you're a kid, God, and I've been so hard on you about stuff that's not even your fault. I'm so sorry Jason." 

"You have been kinda mean to me." He agreed quietly, sniffling. "So's Dick." Beside him, Barbara seemed to deflate, shoulders slumping and a hand going up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. 

"Yeah." She said softly. "I know." Pausing, she reached out and took one of Jason's hands, squeezing it gently. He stiffened at the initial contact and Barbara seemed to wince when he did. "Look Jason, it's...it's really hard to explain right now, but you need to know that no one's mad at you. I thought I was for a little while, but I was just being an idiot. And Dick thinks he is too, but he's the biggest idiot ever."

"He is kinda a boob." Jason murmured and was surprised at the bark of laughter that the comment earned him. 

"Yeah, a big boob." She agreed, giving his hand another squeeze. He relaxed a little, letting his head loll back against the wall on the other side of his bed as he watched Barbara. "I know it's hard, especially when you hear people saying bad things about you, but I just wanted you to know that we're not mad at you."

"Who're you mad at then?" Because they had to be mad at someone, right? When Jason's mom's boyfriends had been mad at someone, they used to hit things, like the wall or the door or even his mom, maybe this was like that? Exhaling deeply through her nose, Barbara looked at him sadly. 

"Each other, mostly. Dick's mad at Bruce, I'm mad at Dick, and Dick's mad at me for taking Bruce's side, except I'm mad at Bruce too, and it makes me even madder that Dick thinks I'm on his side." Oh. That seemed...complicated.

"What about Bruce?" Jason asked, because surely Bruce must be mad at someone too. 

"I think Bruce is just tired." 

"Because everyone's mad at him?" Barbara nodded, suddenly seeming very tired herself. 

"Yeah, pretty much." Jason could respect that. When his mom's boyfriends had gotten tired of being mad at her, they tended to get mad at him, and it was pretty tiring, having everyone mad at you all the time. "I'm sorry that I made it seem like I was mad at you. I thought I was, but I'm just mad at Dick." 

"'Cos he left." Jason said quietly, and Barbara turned to stare at him, visibly surprised. Jason didn't know why. He was smart, he got all A's at school and Bruce wouldn't let him be Robin if he wasn't smart.

"Yeah." She agreed, just as quietly. They were both silent for a moment, before Barbara spoke again, trapping his hand in another squeeze. "I'm sorry if I made you feel like you aren't good enough, or that I didn't want you here. Because you are good enough. Bruce wouldn't let you out if you weren't. And...And I do want you here, Jay. It's nice, to have someone else on the team again."

"Is it?" Jason asked, trying not to sound too hopeful, though he suspected he didn't succeed. Barbara turned to him, a genuine sunny smile on her face, and Jason understood all at once why Dick had been crazy for her.

"Yeah. And I'm not asking for forgiveness right now, because I know I don't deserve it, but I just wanted you to know that I am sorry. And that I want to take you out on patrol tomorrow night." That made Jason lurch upright, turning so his entire body faced the woman.

"Really?" He said, and this he knew it sounded too hopeful, he just didn't care. Barbara grinned again, laughing slightly as she nodded.

"Yeah, is that OK with you?"

"Are we gonna go over the Narrows?" That was Batgirl's area at the minute, the Narrows, Bruce had moved her there because he thought there was some drug smuggling thing going on at the docks and he wanted to handle it himself. But the Narrows were cooler, being there meant Jason got to beat on the thugs that used to pick on him and his friends.

"Probably." Barbara said, still smiling. "And we could get ice cream after patrol, if you wanted. I know this great little place in Burnside."

Jason had wanted, but Bruce had said no when Barbara had told him of their post-patrol plans, so Barbara had taken him after school two days later.

And for his birthday nearly nine months later, Barbara had got him a beautiful model B-52 Stratofortress, which they'd spent hours putting together after school and before patrol. She'd helped him with every model that he'd got after that too, even when he was 14 and didn't really need the help anymore, but he loved her company.

He loved her. She was his big sister. The person he went to when he had a bad day at school, the person he went to for advice on girls, the person who snuck him into R-rated movies, she was his person. A member of the family.

And Joker had taken him away from her.

And now, Joker has hurt her too.

She looks small, nothing like Jason remembers, nothing like the big girl that broke Two-Face's arm after he'd thrown Jason into the path of an oncoming car. Nothing like his big sis, his Babs.

When one of the guys he'd hired had first told him that Commissioner Gordon's girl had been crippled by the clown, Jason had stepped in to the bathroom and retched until he was dry-heaving, but he hadn't cried. Now he is crying, tears running down his face and dripping on to his jacket and he doesn't know if he'll ever stop, because...Because it's Babs.

"Oh God, Babs." He murmurs, taking a step closer to her bed. He had only come to see her, just step into the room and see her, to make sure she was alive. But he wants so desperately to touch her. To grab her hand and squeeze like she'd done that night that she'd come to apologise, to tell her that he forgives her, because he never did get around to letting her know...He sinks to his knees at her bedside, head bowed, and with as much gentleness as he can muster, takes the hand that is lying beside her, on top of the sheets.

"I'm so sorry Babs." He chokes out, pressing his lips to her knuckles. "I should've killed him when I first came back, I shouldn't have waited." He bites down on his lip to stop a sob from escaping as he moves so he can press his forehead against her knuckles instead, like he is a knight bowing to his queen. "I'd have killed him as soon as I'd come back if I'd ever thought he was gonna do this to you."

He stops talking then, just crying softly and holding her hand, entire body shaking. That damn clown, that monster, he took Jason away and now he's hurt Barbara? He's gonna pay, Jason's gonna make sure of it. Bruce might not be willing to take the final step, but Jason's no coward like him. That thing has messed with his family too many times, and now he's gonna suffer for it, Jason'll break every bone in his sick body, starting with his damn legs, and then he'll make him beg for death and he won't-

"Dick?" Barbara's voice, weak as it is, cuts straight through Jason's thoughts of revenge. He freezes, the back of her hand still pressed to his face, and lets out a half-choked noise that is neither a yes or a no. He forgets how alike he and Dick look from certain angles (of course, he shouldn't, that is exactly one of the reasons that Bruce chose him in the first place), but it's no surprise that Barbara has mistaken him for the other man in the darkness of her room, and through a painkiller-fuelled haze. "Dick? What're you doing here? Visiting hours aren't til 9." That makes him laugh, even through the tears, sweet Babs, still obeying as many rules as she can. "Did you find my dad?" She asks, and Jason starts, because he had forgotten the Commish was missing. Bruce and Dick had better have the guy by sun-up or all of Jason's plans, so carefully laid, are going straight out the window, along with Batman, Nightwing and the clown. "Dick? Is my dad OK?"

"I don't know Barbie, I'm sorry." He looks up and watches her blink slowly, eyes flicking over his features. Those drugs must be dulling her mind something awful, because it takes far too long for her to let out a startled hiccup of his name.

"Jay?" Her hand pulls away from his so she can cup his chin with trembling fingers. "Is that you?" His smile is sad as he answers her.

"Yeah Babs, it's me." She makes a pained noise, animal in its rawness, her fingers curling to dig into his chin so she can drag him closer. Despite her current state, she manages to pull him half up onto the bed, his stomach digging into the metal edge of the bedframe as her arms wrap around his shoulders and she clings to him, shaking softly. 

"Jay, Jason..." She sobs quietly, tears sinking into his jacket. "I've missed you so much..." 

"I've missed you too Barbie." He murmurs, wrapping her in a tight hug, trying to be mindful of her midsection, but it's hard when all he wants to do is scoop her up and hold her close, to breathe her in and stop both their tears. 

They cry quietly for a few minutes, Barbara's face buried in his jacket and his face pressed to her hair. She still smells of the apple conditioner, like she did before he... before he had to leave. Finally, Babs pulls back, her face, despite being tear-stained, is paler than Jason has ever seen it. 

"Am...Am I dead?" She gasps, staring at him, terror written all over her features. Despite himself, Jason finds himself chuckling, a kind smile curving on to his lips. 

"No Barbie, you're not dead, don't worry." Fixing him with what he had always called the 'Gordon-Glare' (amazing him that she can still muster one up when she's laying in a hospital bed, tubes in her nose and God-knows-where-else, but he supposes the Gordons have always been a resilient bunch), Barbara pushes herself to sit up, snapping

"Don't laugh Jason, it's a legitimate concern, I got shot!" He watches her in amusement for a moment until she winces and then nothing is funny anymore. 

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!" He places one hand behind her back and one on her shoulder in an attempt to guide her back down against the pillows, as she bites at her lip and tears gather in the corners of her eyes. "Babs, you gotta stay lying down, OK? The wound, it's still fresh, and you can'-" 

"I can't irritate it, I know. I remember from the time when Bruce went toe-to-toe with Bane." Jason's not sure who this Bane guy is, but he makes a note to look him up. Either he's a two-bit thug or a criminal worth recruiting. Either way, Jason'll find out when he's not trying to prevent Barbara from irritating her injury. "It's not my first rodeo, Jay." 

 "It's the first time you've been hurt this bad, Barbara." He tells her seriously, settling back down on his knees beside her bed. She sighs like he's inconveniencing her by reminding her of this, one hand going up to rub at her eyes. 

"Jason..." 

"Don't think that just because Bruce came back from something like this, you can too, OK?" 

"But I can!" She snaps, fire in her eyes as she glares up at him. 

"No! You can't!" He snaps back. This isn't why he's here, he's not here to demoralise her, to hurt her, but she needs to know how badly she's been hurt. By Joker _and_ by Bruce. It took him literally coming back from the dead for him to realise that, and he's not going to let Babs have to go through that too. "He's deluded, OK? He thinks he can stop crime by dressing up like a bat and beating up people who are only around in the first place because of him! Normal peoples' limits don't matter to him, Babs, they never have! He can keep going and going and going because he doesn't care how much it hurts, he doesn't care how much pain he's in and he doesn't care if he dies because he's as psycho as the rest of them! He doesn't care that he's got people who care about him and who worry about him, all he cares about is the mission! Is that who you wanna be? The guy who isn't even at his surrogate daughter's bedside after she got shot?" 

"Because he's out there finding my Dad!" 

"Yeah, OK, but he's not gonna come here after he finds him, is he?" 

"Well, he'll want me to rest." She says it as angrily as she's said everything else, but there's something in her eyes, an uncertainty that makes Jason push forward. That makes him say the thing he doesn't want to say, but has to. 

"Babs, he's not gonna do what he has to." She juts her chin out, trying to hold her head high, but Jason can see her faith crumbling, can tell from the shake of her lower lip that Babs's world is slowly coming to a horrifying halt. "That...that thing, that monster, that did this to you? That took your dad? That...that took me away?" His own face begins to crumple at the thought of how viciously he was dragged away from his family and tears begin to slip down Barbara's cheeks again. "He's still gonna be around. He's gonna be back in Arkham and he's gonna break out and hurt more people. Bruce cares more about his damn mission than he cares about his family and nothing is ever gonna change that. Not me, not you, not Dick. We are nowhere near important enough to make him consider killing that psycho fuck." Barbara flinches, but he's not sure if it's from the swear (she's never liked cursing) or from what he's saying hitting home. He lets out a deep, shuddering sigh and takes Barbara's hand. "I'm sorry Barbie. I am. I know you love him. I loved him too. He was my dad, y'know? But he doesn't even care enough to kill that bastard for destroying his kids lives."

"I don't wanna talk about this anymore." Barbara cries and Jason nods, giving her hand a squeeze. He wants to carry on, to make her see how Bruce has failed them all, how he indoctrinated and failed them both, but it hurts too much. It hurts too much to watch her cry and it hurts too much to break her heart. So he stops talking. Instead, he wraps his arms around her shoulders again and presses his lips to her forehead. 

"OK, Babs. I'm sorry." He murmurs eventually. "I'm sorry for everything." She will never know how sorry he is that he didn't storm Arkham the second he stepped foot back in this fucked-up city. "And I want you to know that I forgive you. For everything that happened. At the beginning and the end." 

"Jason, I love you." Barbara says quietly, reverently. "I miss you so much every day. It's like I've been missing a piece of myself since you died. And I will never forgive myself for not being able to save you." 

"Babs...I forgive you, OK? It wasn't your fault." She shakes her head, teeth sinking into her lower lip again. 

"I should've saved you."

"And I should've saved you. Guess we both screwed the pooch, huh?" Barbara laughs a wet, shaky laugh and Jason lets out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He thinks maybe she'll be OK. Because if she can laugh at that, right now, in her hospital bed, with her dad still missing and her belief system in tatters, if she can laugh at a 'Jason screws the pooch' joke, Jason thinks Barbara will make it. She's strong enough to do it. And she has her Dad, and Dick, and Alfred, and even the replacement, to help her. Jason can't help her beyond this. Even though he wants to. But he has plans to execute, plans that one angry ex-Batgirl could easily derail with one well-placed whisper. "I love you Barbie." 

"I love you too Jay-bird." She begins to slump further back into the pillow, her head lolling to the side slightly. "Jay?"

"Yeah Barbie?" 

"How come you're here?" Her eyelids are beginning to droop, and Jason cups her cheek softly as he answers.

"I missed you Babs." He presses one more kiss to her forehead and when he pulls back, Barbara's eyes are closed. He doesn't think she'll remember this. She's on some pretty strong painkillers. Even if she does, she'll probably think he was a hallucination. His chest aches at the thought of being reduced to such a memory for her, but it's for the best. He's got some nasty shit to do over the next few months, and it won't help Babs to know that he's the gang leader controlling the drug trade of Gotham. All it would do is break her heart a little more. 

He arranges the blankets so they're drawn up to her shoulders before he makes his way to the window. Casting a glance back over his shoulder, Jason is relieved to see Barbara sleeping soundly, face relaxed and a gentle smile on her lips. He opens the window and climbs on to the frame, fixing her with one last longing look. 

"Sweet dreams Barbie." 

-

The next morning, Dick Grayson walks into Barbara Gordon's hospital room and finds her awake, writing away in the journal that he had retrieved from her room the previous day. She looks up at him and although her face is still pale and drawn, something is different about her. The hopelessness that was there the evening before, just after she'd woken for the first time, it was...well, it wasn't exactly gone, but there was definitely less of it. She greeted him with a small but genuine smile. 

"Dick, I had the most wonderful dream last night."    


End file.
